


not like the others

by lestered (lgbtrobed)



Series: different DNA [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Smut, alien!phil, don't let the tags fool you i'm taking this series very seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24341347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lgbtrobed/pseuds/lestered
Summary: Dan’s new boyfriend is just a bit eccentric, and more than a little secretive. But that doesn’t have to mean he’s hiding something big… right?
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: different DNA [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757338
Comments: 17
Kudos: 98





	not like the others

Dan’s pretty sure that Phil hasn’t noticed he’s awake yet. 

He’s resting his cheek on the pillow, facing away from the side of the bed where Phil’s up and shuffling around the pitch-dark room. On one hand, it’s cute that Phil thinks he could be quiet enough to sneak out on Dan without him noticing. On the other hand, they’ve been seeing each other just long enough for certain things to have left the endearing quirk zone, and this is undoubtedly one of them. Now, this routine of Phil’s is simply annoying.

_ Shimmy, zip, snap.  _ It sounds like he’s tugging his jeans on now - and not being at all delicate about it. Dan rolls his eyes, but in good spirits.

...Mostly. For now.

He slides his hand across the bed and over to the nightstand, carefully plucking his phone off of its charger and pressing it down into the mattress to hide the glow of the flashlight when he turns it on. Phil continues to putter behind his back.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Dan finally asks, sitting up and turning towards Phil in one abrupt, fluid motion. His phone light, shining in Phil’s direction, illuminates a good half of the room.

Phil, for all intents and purposes, looks exactly like a deer in headlights. His eyes, wide and already apologetic, would put Dan at ease in no time if he wasn’t so quickly growing used to this specific set of circumstances. 

He stays frozen in place for a beat, like maybe Dan will forget he’s there if he just stands completely still. Dan doesn’t. He stays right where he is too, raised brow indicating that he wants an explanation. Phil finally sighs and slumps, blinking hard against the glare of the flashlight and dropping his hands from where they’d been halfway through buckling his belt. 

“I’m sorry,” Phil relents, adjusting the glasses perched crookedly on his nose. “I want to stay, but I have to be at the university early today. Really early.”

Dan fixes him with a tired, deadpan stare. “How-”

“Crack of dawn early,” Phil interrupts before Dan can even finish asking. He sighs and taps his phone screen to check the time. 

“Well, it’s 1:30. You’ve still got some hours.” 

“And if I wait until then to leave, you’ll try seducing me into staying in bed like you’re doing now. Except then I definitely won’t make it on time.”

Phil gives him a pointed look like he knows he’s right, and technically he probably is. But that doesn’t stop Dan from frowning. 

“What if I promise not to give you a hard time in the morning?”

Phil’s tired smile and breathy chuckle when he steps towards him is enough to draw Dan in; make him scoot over to the edge of the bed despite himself. He tilts his head up, letting Phil cup his face in his hands and willingly parting his lips when Phil bends down to kiss him. “Heard that one before,” he mumbles in the brief instant that they break apart. “Same day I got shouted at for being two hours late, I think.”

_ Of fucking course, _ Dan thinks as he sighs into another, deeper kiss. Phil’s clearly never letting that one go. 

“What could you possibly need to work on at the asscrack of dawn that you can’t just do during, I don’t know, normal hours?”

“Science,” Phil says simply and quietly, but he rests his hands on Dan’s shoulders and allows himself to be tugged further onto the bed. His gaze is half-lidded and lustful and Dan feels a gentle swell of pride, even knowing that Phil’s intention is to leave him high and dry. “Important science.”

Same answer he gives every time. Dan hardly even bothers trying to argue it anymore. 

“Can you be a bit less cryptic about it?” He asks instead. He keeps his voice low and soft as he slides his arms around Phil’s waist and sits up on his knees, pressing his lips to Phil’s chest in a warm, open-mouthed kiss. 

Phil’s breath is shaky when he exhales. “No.”

Dan responds with a gentle bite to the collarbone.

“Dan,” Phil sighs. He’s pressing even closer now and since there’s no conviction in his voice at all, Dan smiles, pressing another kiss to his chest before working his way up. Phil’s fingers are tangled in his hair by the time he’s finished smooching all the way up Phil’s neck and over his jaw. Phil sighs again, his voice bordering on pleading this time.  _ “Dan.” _

“I’ll stop,” he offers and drops a very chaste kiss onto Phil’s cheek, just by the corner of his mouth. Phil practically growls _.  _

“Like hell you will,” he breathes, tugging at his belt and hurrying to strip off his pants. 

Dan’s pinned to the bed in a matter of seconds.

*

“So you woke up again an hour later, and he was actually gone?”

Dan sighs, shutting his eyes for just a moment. “Yes, and I know what you’re gonna say, and I don’t want to hear it.”

PJ’s expression, when Dan does open his eyes again, is exactly what he’d expected: wary and doubtful. “You know I care very, _very_ little about your love life,” he reminds him, “and even I think you can do better than this Phil guy. He sounds shady.”

“I definitely can’t do better. You’d know that if you met him.” Dan goes back to shuffling his piano books around even though they’re sorted already, beginner to advanced. He just needs something to do with his hands. “And he’s not shady. I think you guys would get on, honestly. He’s like…”

He pauses for a moment, because what _is_ Phil actually like? Hard to put into words, that’s what. Which he supposes doesn’t really help his case at the moment. “He’s like no one I’ve ever met before. Definitely not like anyone I’ve dated before.”

PJ looks unimpressed. “Really? Because it sounds like he’s distant, suspicious, and periodically ghosts you. That’s every guy you’ve dated in the past two years, at least _. _ Sophie, would you tell him?”

Sophie glances up from behind the front counter where Dan had forgotten she’s been standing this entire time, quietly tuning a ukulele. Her wide eyes and clenched jaw make him think that PJ’s said something he wasn’t supposed to, but all he does is stare back at her, unfazed. 

“You guys been talking behind my back again?” Dan asks. He’s not surprised or even annoyed anymore; he knows all they’re trying to do is look out for him. He is tired, though. It seems they have yet to consider that he has, in fact, made it all the way to 20 with pretty much no one looking out for him besides himself.

“Come on,” PJ urges. “Tell him what you told me.”

Sophie’s quiet another moment, stewing in what Dan can only describe as annoyed silence. Then she huffs, setting the ukulele to the side and bracing her hands on the counter in front of her. “Fine. Dan, I know this isn’t our business to say, but it’s only because we care.”

PJ snorts next to him, earning himself a mild glare. “We  _ do.  _ And, well…”

Dan crosses his arms when she trails off, before feeling a prick of annoyance. “For fuck’s sake, spit it out.”

“Fine. From what you’ve told us about this relationship, it just…” she sighs again. “It just kinda seems like you’re… you know.” She glances at PJ one more time. In his periphery, Dan sees him nod, and she nods back before looking over at Dan again. “A side piece.” 

_ A side piece.  _ Dan just stares at her for a moment, then blinks. And then scoffs.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Phil’s not like that.”

He goes back to shuffling his music books with the words  _ side piece  _ echoing around his head. It’s a ridiculous prospect, even to him and his penchant for jealousy and crippling fear of abandonment. He shakes his head to himself.  _ No _ .  _ Phil would never. _

PJ and Sophie are in the midst of another silent exchange when he looks up again, and they both turn their attention over, like they’re waiting for him to come to his senses and agree. That just makes him feel even more indignant. 

“He’s  _ not,”  _ Dan emphasizes. “He wouldn’t cheat on me. He’s not that kind of guy.”

“No, not on you,” PJ corrects him, “ _with_ you.”

“Dan,” Sophie interrupts, which is probably for the best given the unpleasant churning in Dan’s stomach at the moment. “How long have you been sleeping with him? Like, a month now?”

He’s pretty sure he knows where this is going. He nods and readies himself for the next question.

“How much do you actually  _ know  _ about him?”

“Plenty,” Dan fires back. “I know plenty.”

Behind them, the front door chimes for an incoming customer and they disperse automatically, a practiced reaction to avoid looking like shop employees who stand together and do nothing. Dan finds himself wandering into the corner of the shop where their only real piano lives - not counting the baby grand that’s tucked away in one of the lesson rooms, but that’s for Dan and his students only. 

This one has its charm, though. It’s wooden and old and weathered, chronically out of tune, but well-loved all the same. He takes a seat on the worn, leather padded bench and smooths his fingers over the bumps in the wood where it’s carved with initials and hearts and the occasional date to remind Dan that this has been a place for lovers since way before his time. It’s his favourite thing in the shop; always has been, even at his lowest, even on days he’d been absolutely sure that no one would ever love him enough to carve his initials in anything.

Now there’s Phil, and it’s entirely too early to even think about the L-word. Fuck if he’s never been so enamored so fast with anyone else, though. It’s definitely… something.

Now if his friends could stop being dicks about it.

_ DH,  _ he traces the phantom letters lightly with his fingernail over the uneven surface,  _ \+ P _ …

And then he pauses because, well. 

He doesn’t actually know Phil’s last name.

Shit.

“Okay, let’s hear it,” PJ’s voice draws him away from the brink of a spiral. He’s next to Sophie now, behind the register. He must’ve just rang their customer out, judging by the now-empty-again shop. Dan heads over to the counter to stand opposite them.

Surely he knows Phil’s last name. Surely it came up at some point and his memory’s just failing him now. Failing him terribly in a way he does not appreciate.

He can play cool, though. “Hear what?”

“You said you know plenty about Phil,” Sophie reminds him. “We wanna hear it. Hit us with some Phil facts.”

“He’s great,” Dan says before he can trip himself up, and because Phil  _ is  _ great. And, he’s right, he does know plenty about Phil, last name be damned. “We have so much in common, literally. His favourite band is Muse, his favourite show is Buffy, his favourite movie is Kill Bill and his favourite Studio Ghibli film is Howl’s Moving Castle.”

It sounds a little robotic, the recitation, even to his own ears. But they’re asking for an infodump and he’s got a point to prove. “He’s played all the Final Fantasy games,” he continues, “he drinks coffee, a lot of coffee… oh, and he hates cheese. Like, an irrational hatred. He knows all these random animal facts and like, don’t ask why, but he can imitate a lot of different mating calls. And-”

“Dan,” Sophie says, and he stops. She smiles a little. “He seems sweet.”

He feels his shoulders release some of the tension they’ve been holding, mouth quirking into a half smile. “He is. You have no idea.”

“That’s just stuff about  _ him,  _ though,” PJ butts in. “What about his life?”

Dan shrugs. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Like, where’s he from?” PJ asks. “What does he do for work? What’s his family like? Where does he live now? Have you met any of his other friends? Does he even  _ have  _ any other friends?”

“Peej,” Sophie mumbles. “Go easy. We might’ve been judging too hard.”

“Yes,” Dan pipes up. “You have been. Judging far too hard. But for the record,” he pauses for a moment to think, then feels a brief sinking in his chest. “Okay, I don’t actually know all those things. But I know he’s from Manchester. And he works at Cambridge, he… I don’t know, does science stuff. Research. Astronomy, I think. And he lives in my building, you know that. I told you we met in the elevator.”

“But you haven’t actually been to his apartment,” PJ says, “right? And you haven’t met anyone else in his life?”

“It’s only been a month, you know,” Dan narrowly avoids snapping. “I can’t possibly know every little detail.”

PJ’s right, though, if Dan actually thinks about it. He’s never been to Phil’s place, never heard him mention any friends or family. He even talks about his job in the vaguest possible terms, and only when he needs to explain away his strange schedule or random disappearances.

Fine, it’s not normal.

“Everything’s been moving really fast,” he explains, but only for PJ and Sophie’s sake. “So yeah, I guess… we skipped over some stuff. But I’ll find everything out eventually.”

“Well, I-” PJ starts, but Dan cuts him off before he can go further. 

“Actually, not even eventually. Soon. I’m gonna find everything out soon.”

_ Starting with his last name. _

*

It’s definitely worth it. Phil ditching him in the middle of the night is upsetting, but he can’t stay mad when the sex is this good.

His hips and lower back ache from being spread so wide for so long, but it’s a burn so delicious that he wouldn’t trade it for anything, especially not when Phil’s the one behind him, fucking him open at a rough, merciless pace.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he knows how absolutely wrecked he sounds, fisting his hands in the fabric of his fitted sheet like it’s his only tether to this physical plane. “Oh my  _ god…” _

“You’re so hot,” Phil’s voice is barely above a whisper. He loosens his tight hold on Dan’s hips and braces his hands on the mattress, on either side of Dan’s shoulders. “You know that, right?” His eyes flutter shut when Phil’s lips brush against the back of his neck, breath tickling the sensitive skin before he plants a kiss there. “You feel so good.”

“No, you,” Dan sighs. “ ’m really close.”

“Yeah?” Phil hums. “Good.” The bed creaks when he shifts, straightening out and dropping down onto his forearms to lay out on top of Dan completely, chest pressed tightly against his back. The change in angle drives his cock in even deeper and Dan lets out a noise akin to a purr, pressing his ass back as much as he can in the little space he has to tell Phil to keep fucking going. He must get the message because he draws his hips back, slowly pulling out almost all the way. Dan lets out a frustrated huff at the loss, instinctively clenching around where Phil’s cock  _ should  _ be stuffed inside him. Phil laughs softly, adoringly, and then doesn’t waste any more time. He snaps his hips forward, hard and forceful and settles right back into the fast, purposeful rhythm he’d had going before, forehead dropping down to rest on the back on Dan’s shoulder.

“Fuck, yeah,” Dan sighs. He’s practically delirious, arching his back as best as he can and seeing sparks behind his eyelids when Phil slams dead-on into his g-spot. “Yes,” he groans, “yes, yes,  _ yes.”  _

That spurs Phil to go even harder, even faster and Dan’s so close now, heat coiling in his lower belly as he shoves one hand in between his body and the mattress, gripping his hard, leaking cock and pumping desperately until he cums, hot white spurts spilling over his fist and dripping down to pool on the bedsheet underneath him, not that he could give a fuck if he tried.

“ _ Oh,”  _ Phil breathes, shaky and awestruck as Dan collapses under him. It’s only a matter of seconds before his hips stutter and he drives his cock into Dan’s ass one last time, tensing up and shuddering through his own orgasm.

He stays hovering over for a moment, then slips out and shifts away and Dan rolls onto his back, sighing delightedly when he can finally stretch his limbs out all the way. 

“You forgive me for blowing you off last night, then?” Phil asks, tying off the condom and dropping it into the wastebasket beside the bed before settling down again. Dan rolls his head to the side, catching Phil’s mouth in a warm, soft kiss. 

“I guess,” he breathes in deep, reaching up to comb his fingers through Phil’s scruffy black fringe. “I can’t be mad at you for like, doing your job. Just sucks going to sleep with you and then waking up alone.”

“I can stay tonight,” Phil says - or mumbles, rather, too busy pressing slow, sweet kisses to Dan’s neck. “I don’t have to go in all weekend.”

Dan nods, breathing in quietly while Phil reaches over him for the half empty wine bottle that’s on the floor beside the bed, taking a long sip and offering it to Dan. He glances over at it, sighs, and shakes his head. 

“You sure everything’s okay?” Phil sets the bottle down again. “It really seems like something’s bothering you.”

“Nothing,” he says automatically. “Nothing’s bothering me.”

Except for the words  _ side piece, side piece, side piece  _ nagging at him from the very back of his head. All day, he’s tried silencing it but something always crops up again, various things he can’t explain away, even to himself. Phil’s erratic schedule, ditching him at odd hours, the fact that he doesn’t even know Phil’s apartment number and they live in the same goddamn building, or so Phil’s told him. They’d started off together in a whirlwind, but surely he should know Phil’s most basic information by now. 

Fucking PJ and Sophie, getting inside his head like this.  _ See, _ he tells himself,  _ this is what happens when you let someone else look out for you. _

“What if we stayed in your apartment tonight?” Dan asks. He’s pretty sure he’s not imagining when he sees Phil’s eyes widen just the slightest bit. 

“What?” Phil asks after a brief pause. “We’re already here, though.”

“I’ve never been to your place,” Dan sits up, keeping his tone as casual as he can manage. “That’s strange, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think it’s strange,” Phil sits up too, perhaps a bit too quickly. “My place is a mess, I mean… I just moved in last month. I’ve barely unpacked, I’ve been too busy with work.”

“How convenient,” Dan mutters under his breath. Phil tilts his head to the side. “What?”

“Speaking of work,” Dan says instead of answering, “how come you never talk to me about what you do?”

Phil shifts a little. “Sensitive stuff,” he says after a moment. “You know, confidential research. Sometimes government-related.”

Dan stares at him, unblinking. 

“You’re not wound up about that, are you?” Phil’s voice pitches up slightly. “It’s boring, you’d be bored. I like talking about the stuff we already talk about.”

“I don’t even know your last name,” Dan says flatly. Or, perhaps there’s just a bit of an edge to his voice. More than he’d intended. 

Phil frowns, brows drawn together as he examines Dan’s expression. There’s something so intense about the way Phil looks at him, if Dan looks back for too long. He’d chalked it up before to being so deeply smitten, but now it’s just a bit unsettling. 

“Lester,” Phil sounds almost hesitant. “It’s Lester.”

Phil Lester. Dan looks away from him, finally. “Oh.”

Things fall silent between them as Dan scoots back, slipping underneath the duvet to keep from feeling even more exposed. He picks the wine bottle back up off the floor, taking a long, slow drink to gather his thoughts. Then there’s a quiet rustling as Phil shifts underneath the duvet as well, warm body pressing gently against Dan’s as he slowly lowers the wine bottle away from his lips.

“Dan,” Phil whispers. Dan knows he’s asking for an explanation.

“I’m sorry,” he puts the bottle down and drags his fingers through his hair. “I’m having a weird day. Work was… stressful.”

Phil keeps looking at him expectantly. 

“I know I’m not making any sense,” he adds. “I’m-”

“You are making sense,” Phil interrupts. Dan meets his gaze and there’s that intensity again; that magnetism, that disconcerting feeling that he’s staring right into the center of the universe and he should be terrified, but really, he feels strangely safe. He even thinks for just a millisecond that he sees Phil’s eyes flicker to a sharper, brighter blue, but he must be imagining it. He shakes his head a little, as if that’ll clear it, and feels Phil’s hand gently covering his own.

“I know things feel strange right now,” Phil continues. “I just… I like you so much, Dan. I like you so much and I don’t like keeping secrets and I’d never do anything to hurt you. I just really, really need you to trust me.”

Dan knows now that there’s something off, because he should definitely be scared. But he just feels relaxed and content and warm, being so close to Phil like this. He feels a small, phantom tug and moves in closer.

When he’s close enough, Phil kisses him.

“Dan,” Phil whispers when their lips part, fingertips still resting delicately on Dan’s cheeks. “Please, please, can you trust me?”

Everything in his logical brain screams no, but something else is screaming yes and whatever it is, it’s much, much louder.

He swallows thickly, rests his forehead against Phil’s, and blows out a deep breath. 

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> hmu on tumblr, @lestered
> 
> reblogs are appreciated, you can do that [here](https://lestered.tumblr.com/post/618935564142510080/not-like-the-others-e-37k-part-one-of) if you'd like <3


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